Friday, March 14, 2008

Sympathy for the crevices

Craters come in all shapes and sizes, some more bizarre than others. Recent photos of Mercury have revealed two new categories of crater that scientists are puzzling over how to explain.

When NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft flew by the planet Jan. 14 it snapped pictures of several craters with strange dark halos and one crater with a spectacularly shiny bottom.

"The halos are really exceptional," said MESSENGER science team member Clark Chapman of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "We've never seen anything like them on Mercury before and their formation is a mystery." --Space.com

The Velvet Blog is proud to host several exclusive examples of these important, historic photos.

Well, I definitely see the craters. They look almost unimaginably deep! I bet you could get lost in one of those, and never get out. No halo, though, and no shiny bottom. Could we pull back just a little so we can get a better look?

Hey, wait a minute ... pull back a little more, please.

Well, that's just ... freaky.

Eventually, Chapman said, "we'll get to the bottom of this mystery," and probably many more mysteries yet to be revealed.